Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪) warned the US yesterday not to internationalize the issue of the South China Sea, where Beijing’s territorial claims conflict with other nations.
“What outcome can there be if the issue is internationalized? This can only make matters worse and more difficult to solve,” Yang said in a statement posted on the foreign ministry Web site. “International practice shows that the best way to resolve these types of disputes are direct bilateral negotiations between the countries involved.”
His comments come two days after US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking at the ASEAN Regional Forum in Vietnam, said resolving disputes over the South China Sea was “pivotal” to regional stability.
“The United States has a national interest in freedom of navigation, open access to Asia’s maritime commons, and respect for international law in the South China Sea,” she said at Asia’s largest security dialogue.
China and several ASEAN countries make competing territorial claims over the resource-rich area, which is also a major source of tension between Beijing and Washington.
The US has called for unfettered access to the area that China claims as its own, and accused Beijing of adopting an increasingly aggressive stance on the high seas.
Yang, who said yesterday that Clinton’s “seemingly fair” comments were actually an “attack” on China, pointed out that the South China Sea was currently a peaceful area.
He added ASEAN was not an appropriate forum to resolve the issue.
“China and some ASEAN nations have territorial and maritime rights disputes because we are neighbors. It’s not because these countries are ASEAN members that you can say that this is a dispute between China and ASEAN,” he said.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
RSS